rapturerebornmmorpgfandomcom-20200216-history
Alternate Alternates
Sitemap ' --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ' Alternate Alternates Colunbia and Burial At Sea Just CRY OUT for This Kind of Thing ... ' --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ' * See Also Rapture Alternates * See Also Columbia_Asylum * See Also Columbia_State_Sanitorium * See Also Noir_Columbia * See Also Foes_Of_Columbia * See Also Finks_experiments SO MUCH Fun to be had with different/funny ideas in the multiverse type situations --- --- --- Just Three Words : "Clown Vision Mode" ''' --- --- --- '''Better Story : So why DIDN'T Elizabeth go-back-in-time (a planned Fink Mfg Vigor ?) through a Tear (helped by Luteces who are Dimension gods now too ...) to kill Tenenbaum before she discovers the Sea Slug (*OR* did the Luteces 'talk' to Tenenbaum like they did to Daisy Fitzroy - to have Elizabeth learn maturity, yada yada ... That WAS such a DIMWITTINGLY STUPID plot segment), so that Sally couldn't be turned into a Little Sister (no ADAM you see... no Gatherers, etc...). Makes as much sense as Elizabeth going after Booker-ex-Comstock (more Lutece magicry - hmmmmmm - Why didn't THEY just go BACK IN TIME to have a talk with early Comstock X to avoid the whole head popping off incident ???). SO this here was an evil child-decapitating Comstock, NOW converted to a Booker who wants to forget it all by being sent to Rapture (by the Luteces again --- so ***THEY*** are there AGAIN !! -- Why HASN'T Elizabeth killed the Luteces for causing the WHOLE fricken interdimensional crossover Mess-a-topia in the VERY first place ???????????? ''' That's a good plot that just staring Levine & Co in the face, but the opportunity, as so many others good things, was LOST. ) We can ditch all this stupidity for the MMORPG's fun (sarcastic parody ??) adaption, and enjoy the correction of Columbia AND that whole Columbia bad writing story-mess as well. - The Sad Truth is that your average Sunday Garfield Comic Strip has almost as much 'story' as BioShock had in it. There is a pretty '''low bar when computer game 'story' is considered. MMORPGs may have an advantage over the usual Solo Shooter Game like BioShock. --- --- --- For That Floaty "Columbia" Built for the 1893 Exposition ''' : Columbia would be only a fraction of the size of what is supposed to exist in 1912 (and in various Kinetoscope shorts seen somewhat at earlier dates). It was originally a 'Show City' built within a budget AND within a VERY short timespan (however THAT was achieve is pretty much a Fantasy as well, EVEN when it was shoddy 'Potemkin Village' fakery' -- the Plaster and Lathing and Chicken-wire as almost all of those Exposition Fairs' construction HAD TO be built with). How exactly was Columbia expanded so much during the period it was flying around visiting other locations in the World (and was still run by the US Government) to 'show the flag' ?? No need for any real 'population' for that - more would only complicate things. SO there most likely would only have been small enlargements/repairs/improvements/adjustments. It was still just full of 'actors', and the people/crew needed to operate it. Any expansion costs money, which the US taxpayers were LOATHE to pay (particularly as a MAJOR Depression was starting up at the time of the 1893 Exposition). After Comstock took it over, was it then greatly expanded ?? So WHO paid for THAT, and HOW exactly was this construction done (enlarged to meet all the requirements of an appropriate population for the extent shown - and THAT can't be only be for the small numbers of people we see in the game). (( Of course it is never mentioned how they supplied the place, even though they blathered on '''endlessly about their Fake Science. )) Who are all the people who are living there later, or who somehow got aboard to be able to side with Comstock to take it over ???? Who paid the huge amounts of CASH to expand it ? (( Riddle - How many un-american cultists does it take to occupy Columbia ? Its implied so many were NOT the religious fanatics - seemingly ordinary folk. So how exactly did that work ? )) AND What facilities were used to do so ?? The game story really doesn't explain these things (you'd think it would be important to make the backstory clearer, particularly when THAT was supposed to be a BIG element of "BioShock" genre games. Selective explanations (likely it would all collapse under its own illogic WHEN they ever started to try to explain just the practical issues). - "Its only a game" ''' ... Yeah well then why did the dopey PR people/employee interviews then talk Infinite BS up as if it WAS more than just a game ???? Any idiot/hack can create BIG Impressive looking shit these days in games, but creating a logical "World" takes '''FAR more than that. Creating a proper Backstory takes more than that. Generic/vague cloud-obscured FloatyShit™, off in the distance - again ANYONE can do that. --- FANTASY --- Issues : The whole basis from Infinite BS is severely flawed - and so many problems flowing out of it : The most basic is the continuing of the Quantum fantasy BS from Infinite. Quantum Physics is real, it just has nothing at all to do with things they try to explain in the Infinite BS game, and make use of for their storyline. The game in itself is based on scientific nonsense/misuse, and is inconsistent with its own rules and definitely inconsistent with any real Quantum Theory. That "There are Constants and Variables..." crap .... The MOST FUNDAMENTAL THING about (real) Quantum Mechanics is that there are NO 'Constants'. The theory about "Infinite" multiverses (actually its called the "multi-world interpretation"), which they claim to be using in the game (or spoken of in those interviews), fundamentally means that Elizabeth could NEVER get to all the INFINITE number of Bookers/Comstocks. That's assuming we even allow the Interdimensional 'universe' Jumping, or the Time Travel to be possible (its only allowed by their *Fantasy* thing they label "Quantum Mechanics/Physics/Theory). --- --- --- The Comstock Witch Project : Battleship Bay doubled in purpose for Witch Drowning Events (and a safe place to burn Crosses - gots to keep flames away from all that highly combustible faux-stone and faux-brick construction ). --- --- --- --- --- --- My Columbia Tis of Thee, Sweet Place of Insanity, Of thee I Scream ... ' : Oh !!! ('Captain Obvious Plot Arrives) : Shouldn't all the Vigor (ADAM) users in Columbia now be insane Mutants tearing the place apart ??? Mass addiction and rioting when the Vigor "users" can't get their fix ??? Scenes of Godly Folk recoiling in horror from the transformed creatures sowing discord everywhere ? Rampages of demented crazies with (and without) a religious bent doing every sort of nasty thing. See Comstock having Fink executed for bringing that unholy muck into his 'godly' utopia ??? (Or he was the biggest user of all, and was trying to restore his 'youth' ... ) Mass executions to 'Cleanse' the holy city of the dangerously insane ... Corpse Wagons ... "BRING OUT YOUR DEAD !!!" Gotta be consistent with the logic - if they (BaSx) want to link All the Columbia magic potions into Rapture's ADAM Technology ... You DO see those Vigors being sold all over IN vending machines (and all those advertisements for them), and that all would NOT be there if it didn't sell to lots of people. So, Columbia Citizens MUST have been using it - alot of it (with the expected results - if you are honestly consistent). Or is LOGIC one of those things that Quantum Physics now has rendered obsolete ? ("Quantum Indeterminancy Renders Logic Useless" ... Apparently only where Gamemakers are involved.) WE Coulda had alot more FUN targets for us to slaughter, besides policemen and faceless Founder/Vox minions (now become mutant Splicers AGAIN !!!!). --- --- --- Opportunity MISSED KEN !!! ' : Comstock in the Final Confrontation : His mask falls off, revealing what is virtually a Skeletal face - having further deteriorated from his 'Tear' activity 'aging' him ... - An Animated Mummified Corpse (kept alive by the games ''wonderous/unexplained Vigor/Nostrum/Salts fantasy magic potions - vital essence milked from Elizabeth by the 'Siphon'.) The wages of evil (with some creepy "I knew you would come" strangeness just before his death ...) Allusions to 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' (as another 'we are so clever' irrelevancy). Now why here couldn't we have some of that lovely brutal violence they slaved over providing earlier in the game ??? - Booker bludgeoning Comstock in bone-crunching realistic fashion (hunks of brain/blood forming a moire pattern in the sunlight) , and Elizabeth putting her high heeled foot grinding into the mess left of Comstock's face ???? Take THAT Daddy Dearest !!!! Oh that's right, its about "Redemption" --- Then what the Hell was all the rest of the gratuitous violence in the game about ??? Oh, Was it just part of 1900s American there Ken ? Such BS. --- --- --- . . . . . . . . . . . . Religious Fanatics LOVE executing Witches (burn them, hang them, drown them ...) "Thou Shalt Not Suffer A Witch To Live ..." Oh My. Elizabeth's magic powers make her a Witch. Where is Booker when she needs him ??? --- --- --- 'A Challenge Taken Up - Carnegie XTREME !!! ': The thing that ate 'Songbird'. The World moved past isolated/backward Columbia after the 'quantumz' technologies were discovered, improved and developed FAR beyond Comstock's limited means and incompetence. When Columbia became a menace, Andrew Carnegie knew exactly what to do. He set up a bank account and set aside to accrue compound interest, and then hired some top-dollar mercenaries from the far future through a Tear (He had spies steal all that Quantumz stuff way back in 1892) to obliterate the pesky cultists. He afterwards sold bits of Columbia for souvenirs. Across the World a Bright Future then was opening up, and dastardly people like Comstock and his Cultists had no place in it. Alternate Story : Carnegie built his OWN Flying City, hiring the best engineers available and scientists to improve the 'Quantumz'. On its maiden flight, it pursued and destroyed the rogue 'Columbia', to much acclaim and an official thanks from the United States government and the people of the country for dealing with such an embarrassment. Transportation WORTHY of being in a Flying City (Columbia is more like a town anyway - perhaps this is like what Andrew Carnegie would have in HIS Flying City...) THIS looks like it is actually something that could work, and in a quite nice massively verticalized cityscape (in a style/construction technologies concurrent with those times). Not something made by game designers who were ready/able to ignore the basics of engineering and even of simple physical laws in their strange little "Politically Correct" rendition of American Exceptionalism. --- --- --- 'Infinite BS (Columbian) Splicerz (What Mighta Been) ' : Some of the concept ideas had Columbia populated with their (Infinite BS) equivalent of the deformed/demented Splicers (this was likely after the Quantumz Tear 'Merging' stuff ... or even the DLC implied ADAM-based 'Vigors'). http://imgur.com/a/Eah4p The reason this was abandoned for the game may have been the extensive 3D shape and animation work needed for character sets and possibly some variations (greatly multiplying the cost of the 3D Asset work the game would require). Clever programming (as would actually be done in the MMORPG, and not just be promotional hype) to do this automatically might have been possible. But it would require some better programming talent, which might have been very expensive, and still may not have achieved/produced adequate results (attempts at exploration down that path probably had had poor results). Later having too many ugly/creepy people wandering around didn't fit the Happy 'sorta-American-like' 'normal' Columbia, and would have been a story-line problem (for the games thrice rewritten plot/setting). The Sanatorium (with the looney Boys Of Silence) perhaps had some remnants of this concept, but that was supposedly 'later' Columbia, after when Elizabeth had mutated into the Evil Witch Queen. Ditto, the First Lady graveyard, and its (NO DOUBT) Quantum Caused strangeness. --- --- --- 'Columbia's Part in the Spanish American War, 1898 ' : So what did Columbia do now with that 'Patriotic' war (back when Columbia was still US friendly, under command of the US Navy) ? Remember The Maine !!! "What did YOU Do During the Spanish American War, Daddy ???" Nothing apparently. Allegedly it was a 'flying a battleship' in time for the Boxers Rebellion (1899 and 1901)... so ?? BTW, Why exactly could Comstock be in charge of American Government property ?? The Boxer Rebellion shit was also before the Coup (1902) too, wasn't it (again unlikely for things to be driven by Comstock while Columbia was under US control). (( Sorry Kenny, REAL things didn't work that way then - remember YOU SAID the taxpayers funded it ... DIDN'T YOU ??? Government Property. Some Cultists WOULD NOT be in charge of it. Your Serious lack of understanding of History is so mysterious and embarrassing - you try to make a game based on historic events to frame all your 'social relevancy' ??? '''BS BS BS ' '' )) Perhaps (rather) Comstock wasn't involved at all, and any such 'history' is just more self-aggrandizement by him ? (He has no problem making up his fake past, as all con-men do.) Spaniards as bad guys shown as fiends in the War Museum might offend too many Players ??? Unintelligible to Players who don't even know what countries were involved in WW2 ?? Have the museum have them dressed like Conquistadors ?? (( '' That would be par for the faux-history in this game. '' )) Did the City Just stay away because the Comstock clique were still planning their takeover, and the place was in a state of confusion ?? Or was Columbia by then so decrepit, and at that time moored in the Brooklyn Navy Yard waiting to be scrapped (making it FAR easier for a bunch of cultists to steal it)? --- --- --- 'Radium-coated Electri-fed Lobotomy Tools used on Elizabeth ... ' : The Healing Powers of Radium and Radiation were Well-Known in that Earlier Columbia time Era (Atlas got HIS Quality Lobotomy Tools through a Tear ...) Its always fun to make the limbs jump, and poke around to find where the electrode can make the subject do a funny face ... I suspect this might make a FUN Mini-Game ... --- --- --- 'Telodynamics (real term) ' : Definition - "A system of power transmission using wire ropes stretched between pulleys, effective over several miles." Yeah, that sound about the speed of the Fink Power Company. We seriously needed more of the clutter of 'workings' which made Columbia operate - wires everywhere, pipes, conduits, etc... Even if only shown 'behind the facade'. Gears and shafts (watch you don't get your hair caught in them ...) like proper Steam Punk, could be fun. Several '''GAME OVER moments possible when you blunder into the workings/machinery ... --- --- --- Cannibalism in Columbia was Much Exaggerated (maybe) : : "Southern-style" BBQ or Irishman & Boiled Cabbage. : "Would you like white meat or dark meat ????" : "Those aren't jail cells -- THAT'S A STOCKYARD PEN !!!!" : "You feel like eating Chinese, or Italian, or Greek today ???" (( '' OH THE FUN WE COULD HAVE WITH THIS !! '' Player Creations should be fun ... Cliches a mile-a-minute )) --- --- --- Village of the Stupid - Columbia ("Who dealt this mess ?") : Infinite BS - Can we (in the MMORPG) harvest something good out of this miserable failure game ? : * An Amusing Splicer nightmare * A working Skyline extravaganza that Levine&Co simply could NOT deliver * Add heaps of real Imagination * Realistic 'what-ifs' --- --- --- Make Columbia a Real Amusement Park (What Infinite BS SHOULD Have Been) : Fun and Fantasy and Thrills for the whole family (as long as you're white). * Characters wandering around the 'Park' are all those weirdly costumed Creepies (now with MORE quantum disturbance forms and attitudes). * "Firemen" dispense cold drinks and tea/coffee (Or are portable BBQ grills). 'Churros' haven't been invented yet. * Skyline Rollercoaster (No changes required - except maybe to make the even more absurdly shaped and LESS circular). * A B C D Ticket rides (no E yet, that will be added when The Flying Pirates ride is added) * Children vomiting from too much cotton candy - those servitors better be quick to clean it up ... (or they get a day "in The Box' for not keeping their area cleared of vomit and other rubbish). * Ride the Fireman down main street and race the Automatic horse things that look out of the Wizard-o-Oz * Gunfight and Battle recreations - see how "Americans" handled those dirty foreigners (take part in historic goodness). * Those rather odd 'Vigor' bottles seen in Infinite BS could be recycled as targets in a shooting gallery - "HIT FIVE AND WIN A GIMP-SUITED PIGEON DOLL !!!!" (and combined with varying and amusing pyrotechnics on 'hits'). Various other racist/prejudice-based fair games need to be created ('Cast The First Stone' ...). * Prop Mutations could be legion (I smell a bottle design Tool for the MMORPG ...) New even more absurd ones (of course) will be added. Other weird props as well (make the Boy-O-Silence head spin ???) * Traitor Hangings, and Parades Twice a night, and Cannon Practice at Midnight * Pioneer Island (with real injun scalps) 'How the Whiteman Won America ...' Regurgitation Station - The DLC BS Express : SOOOO MUCH POTENTIAL, SOOO LITTLE IMAGINATION USED Infinite BS DLC - They really did not have to follow the same illogical plot elements as the main Infinite BS story IN RAPTURE (There ARE infinite multiverses - remember ?). But (for them maybe) it retroactively justifies even remotely calling that BS game "BioShock" (after the fact - without any logical Rapture-linkage in Columbia itself in the primary game *OR* "Bio" anything). (( '' Allegedly, the third game being set in Rapture again was what some of the writers REALLY wanted to do. '' )) ANYWAY, For the DLC they could just have had more (even some alternate) Columbia adventures (like what happened AFTER Comstock went insane), and revisit a setting which the gamemakers had already done most of the work for (something better/logical for a limited DLC budget ... with the potential for more/better DLC game scenes/plot to play through), and maybe add somewhat more interesting activities in those places. BUT NO. Instead, they spent alot of effort recreating all those Rapture game Assets. That is a whole lot of work/effort/time/money which COULD HAVE BEEN put into a Columbia-based DLC plot and events -- SO TO ALLOW a much-longer/more-interesting DLC game (*OR* Hell, just have put all that effort into having done a less-sucky/less-short main Infinite BS game --- How much was worked on in parallel, Diverted from the main game ???) BTW, Why IS Booker there in Rapture ?? (( '' Beside 'cuz' the plot said so '' )) * Are the Luteces just bored with their existence again, and are playing more of their twisted games ? (Booker IS their PAWN/toy after all.) * HE IS a developed character, and doesn't require so much backstory (cheaper too for the gamemakers to recycle into the DLC). * SO Elizabeth is now seeking revenge on ANY/EVERY Booker/Comstock ? Who was it that told her this one Comstock was hiding in this Rapture place ? (Another case of CONTRIVE-ITUS and CUZ-Fever) That, despite it not really seeming to have anything to do with her storyline ... it is standard DLC-itus - blehhh. * WAS IT because One of the INFINITE number of Bookers fell thru a Tear (escorted/assisted by the ever fun-loving Luteces), and wound up in Rapture (YET it being quite illogical that he happens to talk like a long-time resident who went thru the process of emigrating to Rapture ?? Typical DLC writers can be real dimwits, can't they ??) Just imagine (to be realistic) Booker's culture shock, WHEN he was dumped ~35 years into the future ... But Sorry, he's got to be 'savvy' to fit the story, don't he ? (growing up on the western plains it is amazing he knows what a flush toilet is for, no ?) * It is unfortunate DLC-laziness to have the Infinite BS plot-detail-stupidity carry over into our poor Rapture ?? Another element they missed elaborating upon : Now Booker P.I. somehow can frankly talk to Elizabeth ??? When he SHOULD know from his past (whispers from the Luteces) that she (Crazy Lizzie) is out to drown him (Booker=Comstock) again. That, AND that she is just a really-really twisted/revenge-driven person (it is an obvious lie, as shown by her actions, that "saving Sally" isn't her real motive). Having HIM KNOW that, and HIM try to kill her, THAT would have been much too interesting (I guess) for these writers to have come up with. ( A Twisted "Choice" would be YOU (Elizabeth) by reflex *HARVESTING* Sally, then making stupid excuses just before she turned on Booker - as part of the 'plot'.) * We could also have had (for Rapture) fun ALTERNATE UNIVERSE changes like : Booker/Comstock is now Ryan (or for that matter Rapture is now run by a female "Riana", an obviously different universe where a female might be a multi-millionaire industrialist). - Because of that Multi-verse thing, which the writers originally chose to use, this ALL could have been an entirely different Booker/Elizabeth/Columbia -- with few connection to the bizarre events happening in the original Infinite BS story (so little effort would be required in making it a whole 'nuther chapter in that already built Columbia setting -- EFFICIENT REAPPLICATION OF ASSETS - thus with MORE content). * A murderous Romp through Paris might also have been wondrous (Nightmare Paris even MORE FUN). * Maybe Comstock Running Rapture !!! (but please please please shouldn't have reused those lame Infinite BS combat and controls and props). * The Luteces of course are always available for another gig, playing their little games - have THEM F*ck around with Booker And Elizabeth and the whole story might have been made quite entertaining (and difficulties overcome via easily choreographed via Cut Scenes). * With all the (more BS) claptrap about 'Merging Realities', this actually could be a case of Elizabeth imposing a 'Merging' into a completely innocent alternate Booker/Comstock (How does she know that its not those troublesome Luteces just having more of their 'Fun' ???) No matter, she is bent on murderous revenge. (( '' Twist could have been another Elizabeth then seeking REVENGE on HER when its disclosed SHE is an ALTERNATE BOOKER/COMSTOCK !!! -- SERIOUSLY these writers have no imagination. '' )) * With Tears and Infinite multiple universes, we can have whatever anybody wants appear anywhere, anytime, anyway, with no reason whatsoever required (Just like Infinite BS, where physical laws and the writers logic of thought simply CEASED). Big Daddy - Handyman FIGHT !!!! Why is the Eiffel Tower underwater ?? Clowns ? FRENCH CLOWNS !!! Mimes to shoot wholesale ... who wouldn't love THAT ??? * Maybe we could have had a scene where a whole crowd of Bookers all gang up on Elizabeth and 'drown' HER this time (If there's supposed to be Twists, then lets GIVE the Players TWISTS ...) * OR she meets an alternate Elizabeth who tries to kill HER, or tried to prevent her killing Booker, or anything else they (we now) might think up. ("NO, *I'M* THE REAL DIMENSION GOD" ... *PULLS HAIR*, *SCRATCHES AT EYES* ...) * An imaginative item for a corrected plot would be : Mentioning that Suchong or Fink on looking into their 'Tear', get some other parallel dimension (Note how convenient it was that these Tears which could go to INFINITE places, always led right to the laboratories of a super-scientist). * Perhaps, more amusingly : Having Suchong's 'Tear' opening into Comstock's butler's toilet where he hears some rather unsavory/unseeming gossip about Fink (or somesuch), and Suchong then uses that knowledge to blackmail Fink (and ultimately Suchong escapes Rapture that way). * Suchong as the Player Character !!!!! ("Suchong Teach that Arrogant Fink not to mess with Dr Yi !!!") The BETTER Alternatives are endless (INFINITE !!!). Too bad the writers imaginations were so meager. - [The Mega-Zeppelin -- "CONMAN-stock's Hands On Profit" - I will do that Fantasy Story one better, and have *ALL* of Columbia be ONE BIG AIRSHIP (( '' and its *not* a "Zeppelin", Kennyboi, that's the name of a German company brand - they are called "Dirigibles", "Air-Ships", "IT IS BALLOON"(by certain Faux-Native Americans) and "Lighter-Than-Air Craft" '' )). If we are going to do this then lets do it properly !!! --- --- --- Large Ground Crews Gimmick Scene (replicating one of those pretentious Apple commercials ?) ' : Have the giant prattling Comstock Head while the huge airship is coming in to land ... Crowd of drones standing in Awe. The hydrogen filled (early) dirigibles were in-game mentioned (the first "First Lady") can't be tiny (not being FloatyShit™), so being large would need to have its facilities operate Real World like -- The dirigible's size would dwarf even the gianourmous game scenery. Seriously, the writers were so desperate to be able to allegorically name drop "Hindenburg" in their story (an icon the current crop of ''public school students might actually recognize) that they carp-crap the story by not understanding from the start everything would be Quantums-type floaters -- when the whole City itself was already floating, and many smaller test objects would have been made to DEMONSTRATE floating BEFORE the city was built (or even funded). Seriously, storyboards and 'good ideas' and effort wastage drove this game into its lameinocity. --- --- --- '''Damnation Alley 1893 : Armored Trains on the Skyline (In THOSE other dimensions the Vox never had a chance) Maxim Gun firing Player Mini-Game (like the gunship/helicopter scenarios in CoD Call Of Duty - a VERY successful game series --- --- --- That Tear 'Reverse' Dimension (in MMORPG redo which has lots of 'odd' *FUN* Tear dimension places) ' : Things happen backwards (watch out when you used the restrooms... Red Dwarf joke there) or the 'Up is Down' dimension (The theoretical multiverse may allow different physical laws to exist ... this kind of thing is a sign of certain people "having way too much free time" hypothesizing). BTW - technically this kind of multiverse thing is NOT theory, as per Science (Something the usual mass-media wankers typically ignore for so many 'Science' things these days. Theory is supposed to have some proof behind its possibility or real observable things to demonstrate the idea works). '''THAT'S NOT THEORY -- THAT'S LEROY !!! ' - Could have lots of weird 'Tear' portal destinations where strange and wondrous things (different laws of physics operate) could take place, and Players could create unusual and fun effects in those 'Worlds' using the modifiable game mechanics ( I used to do this in Unreal Tournament by turning the Gravity really low ). --- --- --- '''The Real Deal ? : The 1893 "Columbian" Exposition, commemorated the 400th Anniversary of Columbus' voyages to the New World. (Oops, you thought it was that image of a White Woman, Manifest Destiny image wrapped in the 'Stars and Stripes' ?? ) SO giant robot Columbi (he wore monks garb) rampaging about on a giant flying wooden boat ?? (Yah ... Kenny could make it a slaveship) Screaming "I'll Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria YOU SUCKA !!!!" Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show played in Chicago during the Exposition. We could have had alot of fun with THAT. (Maybe some of those 'evil' injuns were kidnapped later for Comstock's racialist freakshow ???) --- --- --- GAME IMAGINATION - Would Have Been : A Dr-Who Castrovalva-like Columbia : Quantumz making everything every direction at once -- See THAT'S what you use Quantumz for, not some weak-kneed 'floatyshit'. One of those 'universes with different laws of Physics' which some Quantum Theorists sometimes talk about. (This could/can be a Alternate "Many-Worlds" Columbia used as a Splicer Dream in the main MMORPG.) Tears Used as Portals in an Escher-like city. Relative orientation localized (you'll have to be clever to resolve the boundaries where the shifts happen for game mechanics ... including moving projectiles). Unfortunately, it does take real game mastery to provide a proper story within a free movement type (sandbox) game world (or one with pretty sunny clouds and shiny buildings). --- --- -- Flying Bicycles for Columbia : Some SteamPunk fan did a 3D artwork version of something (a anachronistic streamlined 30s bike with Songbird-like type wings). Bicycles were just becoming big around the Turn of the Century. Makes far more sense then that Skyline stuff (certainly as they did it in the game). Chase scenes, mounted weapons/accessories, sweeping maneuvers being possible, far more than with that 'Skyline'. Unfortunately, unrestricted movement is a No-No in a "Player to be led by the nose like a Steer" type shooter game (so as with having other realistic vehicles in the Game Engine, it would take more complicated scripting/programming to do right). The MMORPG system would be designed to support such features. --- --- --- The Fink Music Gun Mk3 ''' : * Sound can KILL !!! ("But, But I only had it set on "Stun" Sergeant ...") * With a cylinder sound option (Heh, not some anachronistic record they shouldn't have used for those Vox-o-Phonez) to switch affects. * "LETS JEREMIAH HIS ASS !!!" (a saying) * Weird sounding sounds for easy to vary Assets (stay away from copyrighted sounds though). * "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, DIE !!!!!" We can have this in the MMORPG Fantasy corner (deranged Splicers have such very weird dreams) --- --- --- '''Gibberish Made From Real Terms (Reverse Attempts To BS Real Science - Its Fantasy) : For your gaming pleasure : "Excitonic Condensation" (great buzzword usable for just about anything you want - if you are hack gamewriters). Add "Graphitic Bernal Stacked Configurations" and we can have a truly righteous techo-gibberish hootenanny. Real terms variously related to superconductors and whatnot. But I'm sure that they could be exploited for game related things which they have little to do with (Maybe they are the what caused the ghost of Lady Comstock to be such a pain ??? ...) Maybe not. Infinite BS used buzzwords many people have heard (and have been thrown around alot in fluff science 'shows' to be familiar), but really are too esoteric to be explained and understood (and for how they are misused/abused in the game). --- --- --- Mary Poppins Physics : Columbia should have been designed like a Giant Kite (and with a 50 mile long kite string ) A number of catchy musical tunes would be required of course... (dancing policemen and such...) At the end, Flame out Comstock's Umbrella, and send him to his Doom ... Oops, that all would require talent to pull off successfully. "It Takes A Spoonfull of Bullshit to make Fake BioShock Go Down, to make Fake BioShock Go Dowwwwwn ..." --- --- --- Sci-Fi Ideas To Add To Improve Columbia (the MMORPG Redo) : Columbia is powered from some sideways (multiverse) universe (no not one about 'wine and whiney writer wannabees'), and the truth is then shown that they are killing everything in that other dimension and the people in it (and strangely it turns out to be *OUR* universe...) And then this team of scientists and soldiers go through a 'Tear' to put an end to it (taking a Nuke with them to take out 'the fiends on the other side'). Now THAT'S some original writing ... --- --- --- AS Einstein said in 1905 : "This is retarded !!!" ''' : After he read Luteces Published Scientific Papers, and the proposals in it ... He later laughed at "Columbia : The High City" where alot of people were fooled/deluded by a clever application of Ergot Extract (which was a natural form of LSD). Comstock should have followed that rule about "Don't Get High On Your Own Supply" --- --- --- pix '''Disney Did It Better : The first part of Infinite BS was alot like entering old Disneyland ... Mainstreet then you take a right to Tomorrowland, and all the 'behind the scenes' stuff. (AHA. Virtually cloning of those old fruit company posters was bad enough in BS1/BS2, but now ...) Actually alot of it did look and feel like Coney Island. (( '' And how that is supposed to accord with 'New Eden' makes me wonder about Ken Levine's warped thinking processes - that he might attribute such to 'other people' in those evil days in American 'history' )) --- --- --- '''If You Wanna Do Real Stupid Fantasy Then ... ' : Infinite Universes?? SO lets have at least one 'micro' universe up Elizabeth's ass, and the one up Comstock's ass (and Booker's naturally ... and TWO Luteces? NO THAT WOULD BE TOO STRANGE), AND they are inter-dimensionally at war with each other. Seriously, that is more logical/interesting than the BS game's plot turned out to be ... --- --- --- Consider Substituting an 'Alternate' Elizabeth ... : ' Her having an "Ugly As Sin" Ogre-like face/body might have given you a different game outlook, No ? No more leveraging the standard/endemic cartoon-prettiness to make the character extra-palatable to the typical Player demographic. That at least would present a new effect (and allow a "politically correct" beratement of 'Players' for being repulsed and prejudiced) rather than regurgitating the regurgitation Infinite BS was. While I'm being creative : have 'old' Comstock be the detective she comes to see, and have him decrepitly (burned by the Tears) wheezing and limping about, and squinting at things with his deteriorating Eyesight, and missing most shots fired in any fighting (Comstock ... Catch!!!! SMACK!!!) Combat would be MUCH more challenging then. --- --- --- '''Columbia - Could Have Been One Big Charnal House ' : Somewhere in some high obscured spot - YOU find a large creepy pile of bones from the people that Songbird carried off and killed/tore apart/ate(?) (( Gothic Horror Columbia sounds alot better NOW, Don't it ? )) We never did see a HUGE Bird Feeder full of giant seeds, did we ??? I suppose all the dead 'Untermenschen' (worked to death or brutalized) might get dumped at sea to dispose of 'the evidence'. ( How to hide all this from all the 'white' population's eyes ??? Preserving the pretense of good American Freedom/Equality and all that, in this flying Strawman of supposedly historic American culture ... Remember when I say "BS", It don't stand for 'Bird Seed' . ) Now it is explained - Songbird was fed on human corpses -- PROBLEM SOLVED. --- --- --- '''Just a Bit Too Unstable : So much weirdness attributed to the Cultist loons in Columbia ?? Seeing the whole place crash spectacularly would be something EPIC, (It wasn't really possible for you to be in the setting of that lame-assed game - as Columbia would have come apart LONG before 1912 - from inside or from the outsides reaction). Memories in some 'survivors head who is now in a Insane Asylum (ranting about giant leather wearing pigeons) --- --- --- Systematic Lobotomization of the Servile Classes ??? (Lobotomies were done to 'calm' violent and argumenative patients) ' : How do you keep Irishmen (the whitest of the serfs) in such servitude otherwise?? Why would they even come to this cultist police state - https://evil.wikia.com/wiki/Crapsack_World https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CrapSackWorld ?) (( '' Oops, you forgot about American Freedom of Religion there, Kennyboi '' )) How else could you KEEP anyone there in Columbia who did not like being there (or rather was being abused and oppressed and tyrannized) ???? Dissatisfied residents can sabotage things, and cause chunks of the city fall from the sky or ram into each other. You can quietly set fire to the wood lathing in a closet and whole building/block goes up like a bonfire. Servants mingling with their betters?? (They must be kept in profound fear, so as to not simply chuck all their 'betters' over-the-side OR stab them while they sleep ??? -- The Social Pyramid requires big pile of 'workers' to support a few ruling elite and any middle class they have 'bought off'.) Even Elites in a Police State are impinged upon. For all that pretty sunny airy space, Columbia is really quite small if you want/need 'safe zones' for "Whites Only" -- the cattle by Infinite BS's year date are no longer 'cowed' or trusted, many of them having previously been Americans (Unless [[Comstock] has been kidnapping Columbia's serfs from other countries to replace a constant servile class attrition). --- --- --- '''Scene - Columbia Destroying NYC in 1984 ? ' : I would think that a (real) single nuclear-tipped Air-to-Air missile fired from a single Air Force Interceptor Jet could have ended that threat decades earlier. The World wouldn't stop, after all. (All that is assuming Columbia wasn't finished off by the US Government LONG before then, maybe only a little after 1912.) Fantasy plots, you see, can be quite stupid/illogical, even if the scenes might 'Look Good'. Another 'Good Scene' would be Booker doing the "Joker Pencil Trick" on Old Elizabeth ... dontcha think ? Far Better ... and shockingly amusing to boot - kindof a jump scare thingee when it happens 'Out of the Blue' (then there's no need to get drowned, now is there ? -- This Optional Ending is activated by selecting the Deaths Head pendant for Elizabeth, when the Luteces offer). --- --- --- '''WORD OF THE PROPHET : "How can I fool everyone ALL of the time" - Zachary Hale Comstock : Excerp : "with the hallucinogen that Lutece woman cooked up, I could fool people into believing in anything I tell them ..." A much simpler explanation (plot) without relying on the ridiculous faux-science component of the game (and a better relevant story allegory for : 'How people are Willing to be deluded', rather than Levine's crap about the perfect alibi of "the quantumz made me do it" OR "It 'did' and 'did not' happen - both at the same time, and neither" ... Sorry Ken, people are not quantum particles). Mass hypnotism (drug aided)... "I'd pay a dollar to see that !!!" (actually with Booker NOT being yet affected, he would see through the lie (at first).) --- --- --- Scene we Might Have Seen (Alternate Dimension) ' : Elizabeth (in Rapture BaS2 ) sees the dress she arrived in hanging in the store (Blue Fin ??) where the Tear opened -- and its A CLOWN SUIT... (modify that Audio Diary where Suchong seeing a Tear, sees a CLOWN appear...) OR she sees a Tear open and an alien that looks like ''Fozzy Bear quickly grabs it - and maybe there is a tug-of-war through the Tear for it (Tear closes suddenly, leaving half a Fozzy Bear dying on the floor...). --- Anyway -- '''ALTERNATE CLOWN UNIVERSE !!! Fink steals a book from Leonardo's De Vinci's workshop and tries to re-engineer what he thinks might be some great achievement, and he makes a Pasta Making Clockwork Mechanism - he had grabbed a cookbook, and because he couldn't read Italian ... (Actually a good point for any other info for Tech that Fink might try to steal interdimensionally -- Heh, and another strike against him is : Most of the complex technical jargon he finds he really wouldn't know, EVEN if it WAS in English). The Motorized Patriots actually have a midget inside controlling them (Seriously, do you think clockworks can control any complex behavioral interactions ?? Levine & Co do apparently - Just because they attempt to make computer games doesn't mean they know anything about how "them magic 'com-pu-ter' boxes" operate... Much of the real world has them mystified too.) Heh- 80 midget clowns climb outta the Motorized Clown Patriot (how'd they all fit ???) MUCH more logical to have Fink be a Thief and a Charlatan than for him to be able to understand/employ the megaton of knowledge he is alleged to make use of in MAKING even a few of the things seen in-game. Another 'Fun scene' : Fink trying to offer candy to a Little Sister in Rapture to try to obtain some ADAM (OR even trying to kidnap her), and the resulting stain/mess on the ground after the Big Daddy is through with him. (Remember with 'alternate universes' you can have INFINITE fun scenes like this...) --- --- --- The World Moved On : With Quantumz developments down below far in advance of backwater "Columbia", you would likely have teenage vandals and gangs from down below attacking Columbia with their Flying Model T cars - robbing and beating inhabitants, and laughing at the 'Police' and cretinous 'Firemen', and then simply fly off from them. If a 'barge' tried to pursue them, it would get quickly surrounded, disabled, and sent crashing to the ground to the delinquents merriment. The Flying Cesspit has become such a joke that various Ground Dwellers take pot shots at it with their Tesla Death Ray guns, and carve off a chunk of Comstock's broken-down farce -- just for fun. Comstock can only shriek and pull out his hair at the contempt ordinary people hold for him. --- --- --- IF the game is actually about the social issues, then with such a Fantasy Presentation why not have ponies doing a lynching of a cow. THIS Answer to Players who say its Fantasy, so so that we don't expect logic in portraying historic lies to 'make a point'. If its a Parable then make it a parable without pseudo-historic claptrap. --- --- --- "The Flying Cannibals of Columbia" - by Jules Verne (Hoolio Vernandez) * French genius destroys the incestuous maniac flying town which had been going about menacing and kidnapping unfortunate peoples from French colonies, with the inhuman purpose of consuming them. * Inbred pagans from America empowered by evil inbred scientist pair * East Africa - the Heinous Harvest (stopping only because they ran out of their foul Ketchup) * The struggle in the abattoir and the barbaric feast (mocking of the French most horribly) * The Death Ray is Used - The Nightmare is Ended. --- --- --- WHERE ARE THE PRIVATE BLIMPS IN COLUMBIA ?? ' : Modern technology is the rage after all, and AUTOMOBILES were the happening thing in 1912. SO where were ALL the flying equivalents for Columbia ?? Just like the 'Bathyspheres' for Rapture not being anything like the automobile in a modern city, blimp-like airships should be there in Columbia. We are shown a system of disjoint passage in 'barges' and 'gondolas' and zeppelin-fails (and odd wheel things attempting to run on isolated roads and impaired by multitudes of stairs), but there are no personal air vehicles to try to link/traverse a city broken up by its wide air-gaps. Blimps are cheap choreographed effects. They coulda been floating about everywhere showing an active community - blithely floating about while our gun battles were going on. --- --- --- '''The Sunken Atlantis (Alegory ?) ' : Various weird mystic stuff from prewar Germany (certain Nazis were fanatics about that mythological/mysticism stuff). More than just the mythological NAMING theme that Rapture employs, much weirdness ... Aryan Supermen in their Advanced City (Except what destroyed them if they were so smart/powerful ?? - their arrogance/hubris was what the Atlantis myth said.) Is this a Stage Play someone did in Rapture? Bioluminous Paint Backdrops. --- --- --- 'Historical? Sorry. : ' If Levine wanted real cliche racism in Infinite BS then he shoulda had a Plantation 'thing' on Columbia (made it all one big Floating Slave Hell Plantation). Possibly have all the 'Black' people (which includes Mediterranean-types to 'white' people of that era) forced to go about in reverse minstrel paint (white-face) so as to not 'offend' the sensitivities of the "Founders". If you want to portray Racism, then portray it realistically instead in a timid Politically Correct manner. IDEA - a Reverso Parable, with Black people '''In Charge, enslaving Whites (Its supposed to be about the reprehensible societal ills of 'slavery' and 'bigotry' and 'racism', you know....) Shocking? But then its supposed to be to actually 'MAKE THE POINT'. The Faux-History Faux-Society just didn't cut it. Sorry, but it was all so watered down, contrived milk-toast 'racism' there, mainly to pretend to be 'relevant' and 'edgy'. Try flinging racial slurs if you really want to be edgy and realistic there, Ken. The provided (pre-built into the 'city' slum) "Shantytown" scene was particularly ridiculous. It was just a "Shooter Game" filled with cardboard cutouts and prattling puppets (and a wonder to have cost $100 million and taken 5 years). You would think it could have been done so much better. --- --- --- Some Things Which Comstock Saw In The Future Greatly Scared Him : * A web of evil reaching to every house that was used to worship Talking Cats * Disco Music (an immigrant abomination bent on stealing Souls) * Chia Pets (the work of the demon lord himself) * A further new Century where Freak Show Clothing was worn in the daylight. * An abominable horror known as Carrot Top (playing nightly in the casino of Hell) He swore he would destroy Columbia before he let these things take root in his Holy floating city ... Hallelujah !!!!! --- --- --- Columbia Doesnt NEED to Be A Disjoint Bunch of Floating Buildings and Haphazard Blocks of 'Land' ''': . . . . . . . . . . The Fantasy Technology they had in the game could make a whole lot more float in one big CHUNK, no? Quantumz Can DO Anything. SO a big block of land floating - No edges (with railings) everywhere for inhabitants to slip and plummet 10000 feet to their deaths, nice SHORT paths to walk everywhere, Transportation all in one contiguous piece for actual convenience ... If you want a 'higher place', just add a hill in the middle (or the "Nine Hills of Columbia" if you wish). Make the CHUNK thick enough and the 'Untermenschen' can be kept below in the bowels of the place - hidden out of sight of their 'Betters', whom they serve. Otherwise, I see severe problems when you want Columbia to 'move' and its in 80 different pieces all bumping into each other and getting tangled up. '''OR do a proper 'Cloud City' Heaven -- all gossamer, airy and light, without that clunky Pseudo-Victorian Kludge Mess Columbia was turned into. --- --- --- Couldabeenwalking.jpg| what real difference did it make to the story for Columbia to 'Float in the Air ??? Imagination.jpg|Jenga Columbia ??? Comstock : "Stairway to Heaven ? Not quite. But they better like stairs if they are to come here !!!" --- --- --- ' Elizabeth's "Twist" in Burial At Sea ' : Turns out it was the EVIL Elizabeth (in BaSx) who sold Sally into Little Sister Slavery (now THAT might've been an interesting 'Twist', no ?) She is a ADAM-Pimp working with Sander Cohen, running her string of "Ho's", as she calls them. Creepy scenes of 'extracting' the ADAM from the children ... Another : More than one Elizabth at a time including Lizzy Lecter, cannibal psychopath, OR an OLD Elizabeth coming to take YOUNG Elizabeth to steal her body to rejuvenate herself ... --- --- --- 1902 Secession - Of The Floating Carnival : Dubious state of an old (by 1902) floating Show City, populated with actors/carnies. Its more likely to be in a decrepit state, floating/grounded at a junkyard, awaiting to be broken-up for scrap -- years after it became "old-hat" and 'obsolete'. It is nine years later (after 1893) and the tech was long previously stolen and spread around the World (there IS NO WAY IT WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN - directly/immediately possessed by the US Government ... just for starters). The US government would have CUT OFF funding for a now decrepit and embarrassing Columbia LONG before, and it could only survive by attending county fairs, carnivals and other events for CASH to keep it solvent ... barely (possibly it could have been sold to some South American country as a 'cheap' item of prestige - advanced for THAT part of the World). No problem for Charles-Manson-crazy Comstock, and his Cult to steal it and go on their murderous crime spree (Oh The Humanity !!!) --- --- --- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alternate Universes ... Now THAT woulda been a 'Twist'. But the game makers were less 'Envelope Stretchers' than they loudly claimed to be. Holy Electra Complex Batman !!! --- --- --- --- --- . .